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Masochism
Now that September has officially arrived, it’s that time of year once again – time for me to try and lose some of my accumulated winter weight. In other words, it’s back to that evil three letter word place, the dreaded g-y-m. I have a love-hate relationship with the gym, I love to come up with excuses not to go, and hate it when the excuses run out, and I end up back on the treadmill like a rat in a deranged experiment.
There are two reasons for my unceremonious return to exercising:
One – In a moment of sober yet extremely irrational exuberance, I declared the other day that I’d hike up Mt. Washington in New Hampshire on my fortieth birthday. Thankfully, that birthday is at least fifteen years away, so there’s still time to get in shape for it. There is also time for Mt. Washington to collapse the same way the ‘Old Man Of the Mountain’ did a few years ago.
Two – The WWE crew is in the middle four month long contest to see who can lose the most weight. Only at the halfway point and the roundest members of the crew are already starting to look svelte. Though I am not in the contest, I don’t want to be the odd man out, or the round man around for that matter.
Through years of intense training my body has become a super-tuned fat storage machine. I’m not sure exactly the reason, but lately I’ve been suspecting my fantastic cheeseburger and Guinness diet may have something to do with it. Even though a cheeseburger platter contains nutrition from all four food groups – Swiss cheese for the dairy group, Two All-Beef patties for the meat group, French fries and ketchup for a double helping of the vegetation group, and… what the hell is the fourth food group? Oh yeah! The most important group of all – beer! I always try and have a triple helping of Guinness to satisfy the daily recommended dose of that most important group. Maybe my diet is partly to blame for the thickening layer of insulation covering my abs. In any case, it’s time to try and zap a few of those – shall we say unnecessarily additional accumulated calories.
When I was younger, all I had to do is think about it really hard, and pounds would melt away. But as my metabolism has slowly let me down, my girth has quickly increased. So, it’s time to dust off the ol‘ shorts, deodorize the ol‘ sneakers and… well… throw out the ol‘ gym socks and get some new ones. It’s finally time to go back to the torture rack better known as:
The Gym… gym… gym… gym… gym…
What a silly word. It should be called something more appropriate, like the Blood and Guts room.
I dragged myself away from dreams of two Jessicas kissing this morning to begin the grueling regimen to undo years and years of fun and good times. The hotel fitness center featured the latest in high tech treadmills, the HeartThrasher 9000. Not only do these fancy contraptions measure heart rate and calories burned in real time, they also have built in TVs! What a great way to waste time while wasting time going nowhere!
Thanks to this high tech gadgetry, I found out it takes a half hour of high-speed running in place to burn off the amount of calories contained in two pints of Guinness and five peanuts. The obvious easy route would be to stop drinking Guinness, but I’ve never been one for taking the easy route. I’ll probably cut down on the peanuts though.
I watched as my heart rate climbed alarmingly during this calorie-burning fest. 210 beats per minute is 3.5 beats per second! I felt that was an unreasonable amount of work to ask of a heart, especially one that is happy to crank out about one beat a second or so. My body readily agreed. A copper taste filled my mouth as a tingling, electric sensation shot down my arms. My legs felt as if someone had poured cement into them, and it was beginning to harden. My lungs wheezed pathetically as they cried for more air. As the clock slowly ticked off the minutes, my vision narrowed to the tantalizingly out-of-reach defibrillator on the wall. Boy this was some fun!
Four hours later, I’d completed my half hour on the Death-o-Matic Treadmill of Doom. I climbed off… well climbed isn’t really the word, I think it’s more like… fell – yeah that’s it – I fell off the still-moving belt while desperately trying to suck up all the remaining oxygen in the room.
People gave me a wide berth as I staggered wildly back to my hotel room. My field of view kept narrowing until it felt like I was walking though the world’s longest toilet paper roll. Everything, including my eyelashes was sore and hurting. It was all I could do to pour myself on the bed and watch as pretty pinpricks of light danced across the ceiling. Who needs drugs when working out has pretty much the same effect? Maybe this is the reason people go so nutty for the gym.
After half an hour of this self-induced light show, I recovered enough basic motor function to drag myself hand over hand to the shower and wash off all the blood.
Though it doesn’t seem like it, I’d have to say that all things considered, Day One of ‘Working Out’ went pretty well. By pretty well I mean I didn’t die. Now if I can only think up an excuse not to go back tomorrow.
Author: frenchy
3 Responses to “Masochism”
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You said: “Now if I can only think up an excuse not to go back tomorrow”
Feel free to use mine: “when ever I feel the urge to exercise, I lay down until the urge passes.”
It’s worked for me for well over 40 years, and I’m 71 and while a few pounds more than what my doctor wants, I feel great.
So does electroshock therapy.
A nice mediterranean cruise is looking a whole lot better than Mt. Washington about now, huh?